In Times of War
by Darksknight
Summary: In times of war, every soldier has their heaven. (Royia, one-shot)


In times of war every soldier needs their heaven.

AKA Royia finally caught up with me and I was unexpectedly hit with strong feelings for the couple this evening. This little (UNEDITED) one-shot is the result. Enjoy!

* * *

The blood and ash are ugly, so very ugly. The children left out in the middle of the street, screaming, crying, boom-boom-boom. This is war, and there are no survivors.

The stone isn't red like blood, because it's deceiving, a lying jewel full of untamed power.

(_Full of lives, full of death, he can hear it in his heart and feel it in his finger tips but his brain tells him not to so he pretends he does not._)

No, the stone is almost pink, the color of pomegranate skin rather than the crimson flesh inside.

(_To say, no, no, see I am power, but I am not destruction, here I hold this knife and it drips with red but I'll tell you that it's paint. I am innocent power, I am, I am, I am bleeding with the life of- peace!_)

And there is the world, so grand, and so beautiful and bang-bang-bang, it's gone. The fire's his friend on any day of the year, but in war it is only a weapon. He tells himself the scent of burnt flesh is only flaming rubble. He tells himself the screams are the metal of the buildings crumbling. He tells himself, he tells himself, he tells himself. But he does not believe.

They storm on, the victors, with their noble cause. He sees an eye that is not burdened with (_murder_) glorious purpose, but oh it is red. _Bang-bang-bang._ He sees skin that's not covered with the ashes of past buildings, it's brown like the earth, un-speckled with blood. _Bang. Bang. BANG!_

He had joined the military because he had wanted to make a difference. Make his country a better place. His future had shone with the brilliance of the rising sun, of the universe and stars.

"I can't see a way out of this damn war."

He couldn't understand his best friend, who did. He saw a way back home, a way to the girl waiting for him. He went on and on about it, he wouldn't shut up, he could only see her smiling face on that damned postcard.

"It happens all the times in movies and novels," Roy had told him. "The ones that never shut up about their girl back home? They never make it." He pointed his finger at his friend, it was a pretend gun, shot it and made it recoil. _Bang._

He wished that everyone before Hughes would have just frowned at him, unharmed by the shot because there was none, no real bang and the smell of gunpowder. He wished they wouldn't have dropped dead. He wished that he wasn't standing on rocks painted with their blood.

There is no beauty in war. Only sorrow.

But then he sees her, the woman who's been with him all along, He feels the horror well up in his gut like a drowning see of his victim's blood, his throat tightens with despair.

"Hello major Mustang. Long time no see. Do you still remember me?"

How could he forget?

_Damn this war. Even her. She had the eyes of a killer too._

"Not you too." He murmurs in horror. But it's feeble. She's there. Oh, she's there. She's there.

(_And we kill with purpose, don't we? So that we do not die? This is justice, this is law, this is order and it is how it should be. He tries not to drown in the voice whispering, wondering, was it them who threatened you?) _

She looks up, and oh God, her eyes look like his. Her hands are without flaw, but anyone who's been through what they've been through can see the blood there. Why did she come to this place, why did she lose the life in her eyes that he had so long ago seen, why?

She's still beautiful. He's seen her naked flesh before, traced the ridge of her spine and grace fingers over the ridges of her shoulder blades. He knows her golden hair, silk strands like the sun, and he knows her chocolate eyes that are so light brown he can practically taste the sweet. But it's not all that which makes her beautiful, though only a blind fool would dare to say it didn't, but rather her voice and the thoughts she spoke for.

(_He knows now that there is hope. A life line. A way out. There has to be, he can feel the death and the guilt and he knows it's all wrong, but he'll take it all like a military man and when all is said and done there'll be her._)

He's never hated himself more than when he burns the flesh from her back, but she's never loved him more than in that instant. The death sentence has been removed, though he never did have the will to do away with all of it, he couldn't ever hurt that much of her. But that awful and horrifying alchemy of twisted burning flames is his burden alone. His alone. No longer her's.

(_He doesn't know that she shoulders what he does, doesn't understand that so long as he carries the world she'll hold it to, but God, he can sleep at night thinking that she's free, and so she will let him delude himself for his own demented peace._)

"I'll follow you into hell and back." She tells him.

In times of war, every soldier needs their heaven.

(_I'd go to hell and stay there for you._) But he nods, just nods, they can never be because they're both killers and it's all just wrong. (_I'll love you in secret and you'll love me without letting me know, and we'll both survive times of war even through that chilling _Bang-bang-bang_ and that terrifying sound of bodies falling for the last, last time. For the child's last, last cry. For all the blood and all the bullets. And when we're done, we'll live. We'll live for our heaven._)


End file.
